Now you see it…(09/14/2010)
Now you don’t…(09/15/2010)
In their zeal to get on the “death spiral” train of wild claims about Arctic sea ice, NOAA has made a major blunder, which they’ve now had to correct. Thanks to sharp eyed WUWT reader Marty yesterday who wrote:
I looked at it, it didn’t make sense. Where did they get “2nd Lowest Extent on Record” from? None of the datasets supported it.
Here’s the link to the page shown above, current and corrected today.
I dashed off an email to Dr. Walt Meier of NSIDC:
————————————————–
From: “Anthony Watts” <awatts@xxxxx.xxxxxx.xxx>
Date: Tuesday, September 14, 2010 3:40 PM
To: “Walt Meier” <walt@xxxxxxx.xxx>
Subject: This NSIDC citation seems wrong
Hello Walt,
They are citing your NSIDC Sept 7th report which says “third lowest”
http://www.nnvl.noaa.gov/MediaDetail.php?MediaID=521&MediaTypeID=2&MediaFileID=108
Watching all of the values, I can’t see where they get this, AMSRE certainly doesn’t support it:
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/seaice/extent/AMSRE_Sea_Ice_Extent_L.png
Could they be fooled by the recent SSMI outage I just mentioned? Looking at the NANSEN graph I sent earlier, their claim would be valid if that data was valid.
Or have I missed something?
Best Regards,
Anthony Watts
While I was waiting for a response from Walt, I made a screencap that showed my computer date and time of 0914/2010 @4:30PM PST.
Walt wrote back about two hours later saying:
————————————————–
From: “Walt Meier” <walt@xxxxxxx.xxx>
Date: Tuesday, September 14, 2010 6:37 PM
To: “Anthony Watts” <awatts@xxxxx.xxxxxx.xxx>
Subject: Re: This NSIDC citation seems wrong
Hi Anthony,
I don’t really know what this is. It is not related to the data outage we experienced today. It is an experimental product that looks like it is based on visual imagery, not passive microwave, so there could be problems with clouds. Also they may have a high concentration threshold – the “missing” areas of ice correspond to relatively low concentrations, but still well above the generally accepted cutoffs of 15% or 30%.
I didn’t actually see an NSIDC citation – was it in the animation (I can’t open it up on my laptop)?
Thanks for bringing this to my attention. I’ll check into it.
walt
I wrote back to point out that the citation was in the text link in the 0914/2010 NOAA article where they say: “the second lowest sea ice extent ever measured.” He responded:
————————————————–
From: “Walt Meier” <walt@xxxxxxx.xxx>
Date: Wednesday, September 15, 2010 5:46 AM
To: “Anthony Watts” <awatts@xxxxx.xxxxxx.xxx>
Subject: Re: This NSIDC citation seems wrong
Ah, okay. Thanks. That links to our report on August conditions.
August 2010 was indeed the 2nd lowest. However, for the minimum we’re currently 3rd lowest and I don’t see us reaching 2nd lowest this year.
walt
Interestingly, as Walt points out, NOAA apparently never read (or perhaps comprehended if they did) the NSIDC Sept 7th Sea Ice News article that text links to because in that they clearly say:
On September 3, ice extent dropped below the seasonal minimum for 2009 to become the third lowest in the satellite record.
This morning, the NOAA sea ice page was corrected as you can see in the images above where the yellow highlight exists. I believe that was due to Walt’s “checking into it”. Their correction, with added “satellite record” on the end is word for word what NSIDC says.
I find it comical that ordinary citizens are the ones that keep catching NOAA in these basic errors in broad daylight. I’ve touched on these issues before here.
My thanks to WUWT reader “Marty”, and especially to Dr. Walt Meier of NSIDC for his continued willingness to communicate and to address accuracy in science reporting.
In other news, NSIDC now confirms what I said on Sunday 09/12/2010:
Sea Ice News #22 – melt season may have turned the corner
Here’s the NSIDC headline today:
September 15, 2010
Arctic sea ice reaches annual minimum extent
Arctic sea ice appears to have reached its annual minimum extent on 10 September. The minimum ice extent was the third-lowest in the satellite record, after 2007 and 2008, and continues the long-term trend of decreasing summer sea ice.
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LOL, dig > weeds.
(oops)
I have to agree with Yuba. Admittedly this is eyeballing it (always a dangerous activity without proper safety goggles) but I’d have to say the trend from 1979 is negative to 1995. At about 1995 it looks like the data is fairly even with the 79-08 mean. After that the trend is accelerating negative.
The data is represented as anomaly from the mean.
Rob Honeycutt wrote >> “It’s very interesting because in that same lecture from Dr Barber he says that when he started working in the arctic 25 years ago he was looking at the data and was skeptical about climate change. I think he said “in the 80′s he was skeptical.””
A good point. Dr Barber is obvous a skeptic since he was suspicious of data over a questionably significant time period. Now we have ~ twice as much data and the data trend not only continues to be downward but does so at an accelerating rate…
Guilty as charged, I was eyeballing the chart and laughing at the thought of drawing a red line showing the trend on an anomaly chart that “assumes” the period is a reasonable baseline to establish the “0”.
see:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/01/25/warming-trend-pdo-and-solar-correlate-better-than-co2/
How Spitsbergen Heats the World
The Arctic Warming 1919-1939
ebook: http://www.arctic-heats-up.com/chapter_1.html
“… At the change of the millennium the Arctic temperatures were as high as in the late 1930s. Latest when the warming returned in the 1980s it was high time to investigate and explain the previous warming since the late 1910s. That was 30 years ago. But nothing has been done. Many hundred papers were published, but the “climatic revolution” (Ahlmann, 1946) and what made it happen had not been regarded as worth to receive the required attention.”
“Instead of explaining the first warming that happened under the eyes and observations of modern science, the issue is pushed aside by claiming “natural variability”. That is a non explanation. It generates a wrong impression. If a hurricane destroys New Orleans, it was a hurricane that destroyed the city and not “natural variability”. If a tsunami sinks dozen of ships, a tsunami sank the ships. If the West Spitsbergen Current warmed the Arctic, than it was a branch of the Gulf Current that increased the Arctic temperatures. It was therefore necessary to establish to the point, that the warming started at Spitsbergen in winter 1918/19, that this even affected the temperatures in Greenland from ca. 1920 to 1933, and in the East of Spitsbergen the warming lasted until the early 1940s. Concerning Europe there was a warming over two decades from ca. 1920 to 1940, but this warming was presumably not generated alone from the Arctic region, but has had a regional or continental component as well. Current Arctic research should understand what had caused the Big Spitsbergen warming early last century.”
Surface Currents in the Atlantic Ocean
http://oceancurrents.rsmas.miami.edu/atlantic/spitsbergen_3.html
Trends in thickness and extent of seasonal pack ice, Canadian Beaufort Sea
GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. xx, Lxxxxx, doi:10.1029/2005GLxxxxx, 2005
4. Conclusions
…
“[24] Data from conventional ice reconnaissance over the last 36 years suggest little net change in ice conditions over the Beaufort shelves, despite dramatic decrease in summertime ice over the south-western Canada Basin.”
“[25] Measurements of surface air temperature at a nearby coastal site reveal warming by 1.6±0.4°C since 1974. The estimated impact of warming since 1991 is reduced ice growth by 0.04 m. Impact on ablation is difficult to quantify.”
“[26] Definitive evidence for climate-change impact on seasonal ice will require time series much longer than those presently available.”
“[27] Mechanisms other than air temperature – snow cover, ice circulation and ridging – are plausible contributors to variability and trend in the thickness and extent of seasonal ice.”
This is consistent with the observations of the Canadian Ice Service which has also commented on temp. and melt running a week early.
So, if temp and melt are running early in a solar minimum, its probably fair to poke it with a stick and call it an anomaly but its hardly a trend.
The recent Arctic warm period
Article first published online: 21 APR 2008
source: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1600-0870.2008.00327.x/abstract
ABSTRACT
“Arctic winter, spring and autumn surface air temperature (SAT) anomalies and associated sea level pressure (SLP) fields have decidedly different spatial patterns at the beginning of the 21st century (2000–2007) compared to most of the 20th century; we suggest calling this recent interval the Arctic warm period. For example, spring melt date as measured at the North Pole Environmental Observatory (2002–2007) is 7 d earlier than the records from the Russian North Pole stations (1937–1987) and statistically different at the 0.05 level. The 20th century was dominated by the two main climate patterns, the Arctic Oscillation/Northern Annular Mode (AO/NAM) and the Pacific North American-like (PNA*) pattern. The predominately zonal winds associated with the positive phases of these patterns contribute to warm anomalies in the Arctic primarily over their respective Eastern and Western Hemisphere land areas, as in 1989–1995 and 1977–1987. In contrast, SAT in winter (DJF) and spring (MAM) for 2000–2007 show an Arctic-wide SAT anomaly of greater than +1.0°C and regional hot spots over the central Arctic of greater than +3.0°C. Unlike the AO and PNA*, anomalous geostrophic winds for 2000–2007 often tended to blow toward the central Arctic, a meridional wind circulation pattern. In spring 2000–2005, these winds were from the Bering Sea toward the North Pole, whereas in 2006–2007 they were mostly from the eastern Barents Sea. A meridional pattern was also seen in the late 1930s with anomalous winter (DJFM) SAT, at Spitzbergen, of greater than +4°C. Both periods suggest natural atmospheric advective contributions to the hot spots with regional loss of sea ice. Recent warm SAT anomalies in autumn are consistent with climate model projections in response to summer reductions in sea ice extent. The recent dramatic loss of Arctic sea ice appears to be due to a combination of a global warming signal and fortuitous phasing of intrinsic climate patterns.”
Between now and 2015, (i.e. during at least one of the summers in that time frame), Arctic Sea ice will drop to 2.5 million sq. km. minimum, then, by early 2020’s it will close in on 1.0 million sq. km. summmer minimum, it will be “virtually ice free” during the 2020’s (less than 1.0 million sq. km. at the summer low) and then slowly slide down to be truly ice free in the summer by the late 2020’s to 2030. At least, that’s what the current long term trends indicate, but of course, there could (and likely will be) sudden and unexpected changes, based on the fact that the Arctic is a system that is being pushed toward a chaotic and unpredictable state, subject to all the inherent surprizes, that are unpredictable, but completely deterministic. These surprises will likely be for rapid ice loss, not gain…and if it is gain, it will be like this year’s surprising “bump up” in March-April, when the AGW skeptics declared the Arctic was “recovering” but by May and June, we saw record declines for those months when all that “bump up” ice, which was thin, melted very rapidly.
John from CA. – Yes, there are many factors in play with the Arctic ice. That is why the charts have so many wiggles in them. Several of these factors are discussed by Dr Barber in the presentation Rob linked to above. Dr Barber also discusses a source of error in satellite observations.
I admit that it would be much more enlightening if we had another century of satellite data.
“chaotic and unpredictable state, subject to all the inherent surprizes, that are unpredictable, but completely deterministic”
deterministic chaos?
completely deterministic unpredictability?
Would you believe, completly predictible suprises?
How about chaoticly normal cycles of predictible surprises?
No, ok, ok, try this; Completly predictible unexpected cycles of surprises.
Sounds like the objectives of a video game developer.
It is to laugh.
You have been overcome.
…. A Second 50K Plus Melt !- – the Minimum lasted about 6 hours !
Daily JAXA:_______2007___ to___ 2010__& My Weather predictions
Spt_12-13______ -_4,219 ____+__3,750 (Anti-Dipole)
Spt_13-14______ – 32,500_____- 10,156 – weird __
Spt_14-15______ – 23,437_____ – 50,156 __
Spt_15-16______ -__157 _____ – 55,625 High over Pole (clear?)
15th looked 1/2-clear but 16th brought Clouds http://ice-map.appspot.com
PS: when _I_ look at the Cryosphere Timeseries, I see STEPS down especially 1990, 1997, not a continuous slide – – albeit from 2004 there is a “slide” IF:
– -You ignore 2007’s minimum. And:
– – From 2008, the Winter Maximum has been is going UP – – even as Summers STILL decline !
I think this is the 60-year Cycle.
A good Illustration is : (Look down on the page & ignore the Mid-1960s Volcanos) http://psc.apl.washington.edu/zhang/IDAO/index.html
After the turn-to-Cool years: 2007 & 1947 (60 years before – – get it ? ), the Ice is so Thin, that even though the COOLING Half of the Cycle has begun (as we see from Winter Ice Extent Growing) starting with thin ice results in enough Summer Open Water, to absorb enough Sunlight, to keep it thin . This “Thin Ice Time” will persist (after 1947 it kept going lower for an extra 7 years) until:
(1) It all melts off (which takes several rare El Nino WITHOUT CLOUDS, like 2007)
(2) an El Nino + Volcano (the more common event) these make so much Ice they are the “step UP” that kills the “Thin Ice Time”.
until a new “Thin Ice Time” arises … 50+ years from Now.
Of course you cannot figure it out. So, we’ll try again, try to keep up please. First I said:
“Examine that last paragraph in the top post:”
Then I said:
“There is nothing Scientific about that bolded phrase (unless you count political science as Science). At best it is Elementary Statistics 101, but at worst, it is pure AGW propaganda. It is actually spin that dilutes/undoes the correction that Anthony instigated.”
The first sentence is objective Science. Then it becomes a subjective comment which constitutes advocacy. That fact that you cannot see pre-meditated bias coming from a taxpayer funded agency (or its subcontractors) speaks very badly about you.
Well I guess you just called Meier a communist, a freudian slip? That is the danger of using deperate analogies though.
Congress is the only branch that can hold civil servants accountable, (at the moment that is, because the taxpayers are coming and we are mightily pissed). Your slimy attempt to discredit congressional oversight of our money as McCarthyism shows just how low the warmies are willing to sink.
While I am at it let me say this: unless you are in fact a taxpayer to this multi-trillion dollar keynesian nightmare of a federal government, then, with all due respect, butt out. If you are a taxpayer then I suggest you simply say something like: “waste all of my money that you want!“. But what you do not get to do though, is to tell me to accept it.
How trivial, such desperation.
“NOAA’s sea ice blunder”?
“Arctic sea ice reaches annual minimum extent
Arctic sea ice APPEARS to have reached its annual minimum extent on 10 September. The minimum ice extent was the third-lowest in the satellite record, after 2007 and 2008, and continues the trend of decreasing summer sea ice.”
The extent dropped 116,000 sq/km after a three day rise of 57,000 making the melt season longer by 6 days, with perhaps more to come. The 2010 melt season started 26 days later than 2009 but gained only 90,000 sq/km of very thin ice over that period. Given the late start and the ongoing melt, the 2010 melt rate left 2009 aghast. Add a large volume loss and that doesn’t bode well for the arctic ‘recovery’.
Ice extent minimum sept 17 or not
R. Gates and Yuba Yollabolly,
Thanks but the point for me is fairly simple. No one has the answer to settle the issue so projections of an ice free Arctic are fundamentally irrelevant.
Based on one study I read related to sediment samples taken from the North Pole, an ice free North Pole has clearly happened in the past and coastal cities are not going to get washed away if it happens again.
The one thing we know, the Arctic melts and freezes over every year. It simply isn’t a concern if it all melts because it will simply freeze over again. If someone is projecting that the Arctic will be ice free at its maximum, I’m all ears but the probability of that occurring due to GHGs is zero.
Please don’t get me wrong, I’m in favor of Stewardship, I simply don’t support Carbon tax fraud and a plan that perpetuates pollution.
I’m also a big fan of NOAA, NASA, and see the logic underlying the unification of sciences in the pursuit of modeling but it would be nice if the facts were presented correctly and in context.
Thanks to the blogs, I can now conclude that the gloom and doom related to Arctic sea ice is little more than sophomoric media drivel. But I agree, the attempt to quantify the underlying factors is fascinating.
Maybe the media will finally use some common sense and stop scaring children and tell the real story — the science is NOT settled.
R. Gates and Yuba Yollabolly,
Thanks but the point for me is fairly simple. No one has the answer to settle the issue so projections of an ice free Arctic are fundamentally irrelevant.
Based on one study I read related to sediment samples taken from the North Pole, an ice free North Pole has clearly happened in the past and coastal cities are not going to get washed away if it happens again.
The one thing we know, the Arctic melts and freezes over every year. It simply isn’t a concern if it all melts because it will simply freeze over again. If someone is projecting that the Arctic will be ice free at its maximum, I’m all ears but the probability of that occurring due to GHGs is zero.
Please don’t get me wrong, I’m in favor of Stewardship, I simply don’t support Carbon tax fraud and a plan that perpetuates pollution.
I’m also a big fan of NOAA, NASA, and see the logic underlying the unification of sciences and the pursuit of models but it would be nice if the facts were presented correctly and in context.
Thanks to the blogs, I can now conclude that the gloom and doom related to Arctic sea ice is little more than sophomoric media drivel. But I agree, the attempt to quantify the underlying factors is fascinating.
Maybe the media will finally use some common sense, stop scaring children, and tell the real story; the Science is NOT settled.
Blade says:
September 17, 2010 at 2:59 am …
Ah, you so smart, me so stupid. No understand “subjective”.
“The minimum ice extent was the third-lowest in the satellite record, after 2007 and 2008, and continues the long-term trend of decreasing summer sea ice.”
Which part not correct, as asked before?
“If it were up to me they would drag him in front of a congressional committee and have him explain who he fired for that little AGW snipe, then demand his resignation.”
Ah, this was about money! Hm, me no understand at all now.
John-
>>”…an ice free North Pole has clearly happened in the past and coastal cities are not going to get washed away if it happens again.”
Actually there is considerable evidence that during the last interglacial sea levels were several meters higher than they are now.
1 example: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2006-11/jcu-rwo110806.php
I too am a fan of NASA and NOAA, but I admit this was a blunder. What has concerned me even more about NOAA has been a recently series of press conferences concerning the Gulf oil spill where NOAA spokesmen have made a series of proclamations dismissing the severity of the spill impact and dismissing the validity of studies that have in retrospect been closer to the mark than NOAA’s proclamations were.
I think these are outside the paywall:
http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100810/full/466802a.html
http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100804/full/466680a.html
arch
Andrew30 says:
September 16, 2010 at 9:23 pm
“chaotic and unpredictable state, subject to all the inherent surprizes, that are unpredictable, but completely deterministic”
deterministic chaos?
completely deterministic unpredictability
_________
Andrew, if you think that chaotic systems can’t be deterministic, you may want to do a bit more research on the issue. Start piling up one grain of sand at a time on a table, and eventually the pile will grow and get to a point that it will collapse. That point, completely determined by the laws of physics, is still completely chaotic and unpredictable. Chaos theory does not say things don’t have causes, just that we can’t predict exactly when there will be a tipping point in a system, as that system seeks a new point of equalibrium. 2007 may have been a small tipping point for the Arctic, as it certainly was way off the charts for even what GCM’s said was going to happen. Now we are just seeing of 2007’s low Arctic ice extent is a new equalibrium point, or will there be a “recovery” (certainly not this year), or, since we continue to pile on new grains of CO2 to the sandpile of the atmosphere, will there be yet another tipping point out there where the Arctic collapses rapidly down once more. I think the odds favor this later possibility…
Yuba,
Good point about sea level, glacial areas have been a lot warmer and a lot colder in the past.
I ran across a really fascinating study about the Bering Strait during the last glacial.
Apparently, the Bering Strait is 49M deep at its lowest point, as the oceans dropped by 120-140M (in dispute as to the true drop), the fresher Pacific (total of about 1/3 of the fresh water input to the Arctic) was cut off from the Arctic Ocean.
This drop not only created the Bering land bridge which helps to account for archeological discoveries in Alaska and the Aleutians (including human artifacts dating to 11,400 – 13,300 years cal BP) but due to the drop in the Arctic Ocean helps to explain the Mammoths found on the New Siberian Islands off the coast of Siberia North of Indigirka River.
from the study
The simulations accounted for the changes in sea level, revealing a recurring pattern-each time playing out over several thousand years-in which the reopening and closing of the strait had a far-reaching impact on ocean currents and ice sheets.
• As the climate cooled because of changes in Earth’s orbit, northern ice sheets expanded. This caused sea levels to drop worldwide, forming a land bridge from Asia to North America and nearly closing the Bering Strait.
• With the flow of relatively fresh water from the Pacific to the Atlantic choked off, the Atlantic grew more saline. The saltier and heavier water led to an intensification of the Atlantic’s meridional overturning circulation, a current of rising and sinking water that, like a conveyor belt, pumps warmer water northward from the tropics.
• This circulation warmed Greenland and parts of North America by about 3 degrees Fahrenheit (1.5 degrees Celsius)-enough to reverse the advance of ice sheets in those regions and reduce their height by almost 400 feet (112 meters) every thousand years. Although the Pacific cooled by an equivalent amount, it did not have vast ice sheets that could be affected by the change in climate.
• Over thousands of years, the Greenland and North American ice sheets melted enough to raise sea levels and reopen the Bering Strait.
• The new inflow of fresher water from the Pacific weakened the meridional overturning circulation, allowing North America and Greenland to cool over time. The ice sheets resumed their advance, sea levels dropped, the Bering Strait again mostly closed, and the entire cycle was repeated.
The combination of the ocean circulation and the size of the ice sheets-which exerted a cooling effect by reflecting sunlight back into space-affected climate throughout the world. The computer simulations showed that North America and Eurasia warmed significantly during the times when the Bering Strait was open, with the tropical and subtropical Indian and Pacific Oceans, as well as Antarctica, warming slightly.
Based on the study, fresh water inflow, salinity, and the Atlantic’s meridional overturning circulation are key factors.
The dynamics of Arctic sea ice are amazing. Its a real shame its all been condemned to a CO2 discussion.
I agree with your comments about NOAA.
Sorry, here’s the link:
Bering Strait influenced ice age climate patterns worldwide http://www2.ucar.edu/news/bering-strait-influenced-ice-age-climate-patterns-worldwide
Ok Mr Gates…will I have any winter to speak of up in my beloved West virginia Alpps once the Arctic goes Ice free?…Canaan Valley,WV used to have a 150 inch per year Snow Ave but if you take the last 6 years the average has gone up to 188 inches a year…When will we see that snow ave decline or disappear? I need to know a good time to sell my ski camp & move up to New Hampshire to get my Snow fix.
I can grow 5 kinds of Palms in my back yard, when should I start planting Coconut palms down here in SE NC?..serious questions here..thanks for any response.
R. Gates says:
September 17, 2010 at 12:00 pm
“Now we are just seeing of 2007′s low Arctic ice extent is a new equalibrium point, or will there be a “recovery” (certainly not this year), or, since we continue to pile on new grains of CO2 to the sandpile of the atmosphere, will there be yet another tipping point out there where the Arctic collapses rapidly down once more. I think the odds favor this later possibility…”
================
Do not, the known climate cycles, plus solar cycles suggest otherwise?
Catastrophic collapse, while exciting, does not look likely during the current cooling cycle, the warming has turned to cooling. Check the SST’s for confirmation.
Mr, Gates.
If system is deterministic and you know the present state then you can know the immediate prior state and the immediate next state. A deterministic system is not chaotic.
—
Deterministic: Adjective
deterministic (comparative more deterministic, superlative most deterministic) of, or relating to determinism
(mathematics, of a Turing machine) having at most one instruction associated with any given internal state
(physics, of a system) Having exactly predictable time evolution.
(computing, of an algorithm) Having each state depend only on the immediately previous state, as opposed to having some states depend on backtracking where there may be multiple possible next actions and no way to choose between them except by trying each one and backtracking upon failure
—
So, what is you private definition of the word ‘deterministic’ that includes allows an unknown pre-state or an unknown post-state (or both as per your sand analogy)?
PS. Quantum mechanics is not deterministic.
The ice extent has dropped again, at this rate they may have to edit that page once more! 🙂
Andy
(Sigh) Give me strength 😮 Hundreds of posts in tons of threads have given the answer already!
How about we start with:
Certainly you can agree that that last bit is propaganda. There is no “long-term” anything in a collection of thirty numbers (check back in 100-150 years for verification when there are 130 or 180 datapoints).
Secondly, Since no-one actually knows where the trend is going it is utterly ridiculous to state what they did: “trend of decreasing summer sea ice”.
Thirdly, since the “satellite record” begins at a possible PEAK of ice extent (remember the late 1970’s: the ice age is coming!), utilizing that phrase in the original manner is cherry picking in the worse way. Seriously, if you were to graph half-hourly temps starting at 2pm through 2am, what would the graph look like? Would your press release say: This latest reading continues the long-term trend of decreasing temperatures seen in the 24 datapoints?
An obvious way to parody this propaganda (which has been pointed out by others) would be:
Honestly (and respectfully), has it even crossed your mind that there may now be an upward swing from a low minimum summer extent, and that that swing will not be a straight-line linear graph, it may resemble what most real graphs show: a sawtooth pattern (and yep, it could even dip below 2007 yet still continue a long-term rise). Sir, you have to first break out of the box that Serreze locked your mind in. He does not know, nor do we. Hence my disputing of the dead-sure AGW wording above. It’s simple. Open your mind.
Now if you are willing to do that for a moment you will realize that say, in 2013 or 2017 this may be the press release:
And further in the future, say 2037 it is possible that it may say:
Perhaps we can agree that this press release would be actual bad news:
Yes, this is about our money! What the heck do you think I meant? Taxpayer funding of that AGW snipe is not acceptable. Any taxpayer funded scientist that drifts into advocacy and propaganda should be fired ASAP. If they want to engage in pop-science, get the heck out of government.
Oh, but let me guess, you were actually hinting at some kind of faux Galileo crucification complex, right? To you, the AGW cult repesents the noble scientist and we taxpayers are an inquisition or something? Well, like I said before (and with all due respect), they have placed you into a box and you don’t even realize it. You cannot see anything outside of it at all. Break free man!
Absolute nonsense grasping at imaginary straws.